My Cult Leader Boss Thought I Was a Broke Temp Medic Until My Sleeve Slipped in the Infirmary Tent
The low hum of Elias’s SUV engine grew louder, pulling up just outside the barn. My hand instinctively crumpled the letter, hiding it behind my back.
Elias stepped out, his gaze immediately falling on Silas, who still stood by the barn window. Jonas Lawson, his hulking enforcer, stood a few feet behind Elias, his arms crossed.
“Uncle Silas,” Elias said, his voice dripping with false concern. “What are you doing out here in the rain? You’ll catch your death.”
Silas flinched, his shoulders hunching. “I was just… checking on the barn, Elias. The timbers are getting old.”
Elias’s eyes narrowed, sweeping from Silas to the window, then back to the old man’s trembling hands. “What’s that you’re holding, Uncle?”
Silas’s grip tightened on the envelope. He tried to hide it, tucking it behind his back, but his movements were too slow, too obvious.
“It’s nothing, Elias. Just… an old letter.”
“Let me see it.” Elias took a step closer, his voice hardening. Jonas shifted, ready to move.
Silas hesitated, clutching the paper. “It’s personal.”
“Nothing is personal on this compound, Uncle,” Elias said, his voice now a low snarl. “Everything is revealed in the light of the Prophet.”
He snatched the envelope from Silas’s grasp. His eyes skimmed the familiar handwriting, then widened as he saw the date. His face went pale, then mottled with rage.
“You found this,” he hissed, his voice barely audible but laced with venom. “You kept this. You traitor.”
Silas shrank back, a whimper escaping his lips.
“And you,” Elias snapped, turning his furious gaze to the barn window, knowing I was there. “You have no idea what you’ve just done.”
He then looked back at Silas, a cruel smile twisting his lips. “You know Caleb, don’t you, Uncle? The boy who set fire to the shed last week? Such a shame. A minor, but arson is a serious offense. Adult state prison.”
My blood ran cold. The shed fire had been an accident, a faulty electrical wire. Caleb had confessed it to Ruth, the cook, just yesterday, sobbing in fear.
“Unless,” Elias continued, his voice chillingly calm, “you burn this letter. Right now. In front of me. Otherwise, Caleb will be arrested for arson by Sheriff O’Shea. Tonight.”
Silas stared at the letter in Elias’s hand, then at the barn, then back at his nephew. His face crumpled. The fire in the guard shack still burned, and the rain was making it worse.
He began to tremble, his frail fingers reaching for the letter. I watched through the wall slats, my heart pounding. Elias held the fate of a terrified nineteen-year-old boy in his hands, using a fabricated accusation to destroy the only evidence of his decades-long depravity.
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